


If Waiting's Torture (i'll take another one)

by SleepytimeOtter



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Bill Denbrough is a Good Friend, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Internalized Homophobia, Sort of anyway, richie deserves to have his hand held!!!!!!, there's some talk of eddie's blood/overall injury but it's not anything too terribly graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24752383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepytimeOtter/pseuds/SleepytimeOtter
Summary: Richie thought that the hardest part of the day was over when the six of them pulled Eddie out of the cistern alive, but he never could have anticipated how hard the time in the waiting room could be.Luckily for him, though, this time he doesn't have to pass the time alone.
Relationships: Bill Denbrough & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 4
Kudos: 86





	If Waiting's Torture (i'll take another one)

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from blue october's 'all that we are'. 
> 
> This entire fic was inspired by [lani's](https://twitter.com/lanimani) amazing ["waiting" fanart!](https://twitter.com/lanimani/status/1258225977399873539) ever since I first saw this piece I knew I wanted to write something for it. ;__; thank u for allowing me to use it as inspo, Lani!
> 
> And thanks as always to my amazing beta, [Jen!](https://twitter.com/altocara) I couldn't do this without you. <3
> 
> Minor content warnings for blood/discussions of injury, hospitals, hints of death and some of Richie's internalized homophobia/anxiety related to it. None of it is too particularly heavy, but I'd like to warn for it nonetheless!

Richie Tozier has always hated clocks.

His hatred of them started all the way back in middle school, in a time when the teachers insisted on hanging too-loud mechanical clocks over each doorway - as if they hung them there knowing that they distracted Richie specifically. It’s not that he doesn’t understand the use of clocks, but he doesn’t get how they can be so unbearably loud, and why no one else seems to think so. He remembered listening to the distant _tick, tick, tick,_ of the seconds going by while he was trying to take final exams, being unable to drown out the sound as it echoed in his ears.

He feels that same bitter overstimulation as he stares across the waiting room in Derry Methodist Hospital, watching a massive white-framed clock that taunted him with that same droning rhythm. With every passing second, it seemed as if the smaller hand lingered a little more between each tick, stuttering like the time itself was stretching on longer and longer and running away from him the more he watched.

_Tick, tock, tick, tock._ The ticking of grains of sand running through an hourglass. Proof of even more precious time that Richie’s losing.

As if twenty-seven years wasn’t long enough.

Richie isn’t sure how much time has passed since they brought Eddie in from the ruins of Neibolt, but it’s been long enough that the greywater and blood have started to dry in caked, stiff lines across his shirt and jeans. He can feel it flake off whenever he shifts his hands against his face, but can’t find it in himself to care. Not when Eddie is back there, no doubt being cut open and sewn back together.  
By some sort of miracle, the nurses didn’t kick them out as soon as Eddie was wheeled back, despite the overwhelming stench that was coming off of them. They didn’t even bat an eyelash when all six of them settled into the red waiting room chairs, no doubt leaving smears of dirt and grime behind in their wake.

In fact, they barely spared the rest of the Loser’s Club a second glance when they realized just how dire Eddie’s wound was. Richie supposes he should be glad that they’re focusing on the job at hand instead of wasting time asking questions.

It’s just that he just wants to hear _something_. After sitting with Eddie cradled in his lap in the back of Mike’s old truck for so long, every moment without Eddie near him was a tangible loss. It felt like his ribs were being hollowed out and aired out; like the missing piece of him was taken away so soon after he finally found it again.

Even their fight with a twelve-foot evil space clown couldn’t hold a candle to the sheer agony of the silence that was spreading throughout the waiting room. They’d defeated It, sure, but what kind of victory would it be without Eddie?

It feels, simultaneously, like it’s been seconds and years since he had Eddie cradled in his arms, listening to Eddie’s murmuring about the best ways to keep the pressure on the giant, saucer-sized hole through his right shoulder. Despite the overwhelming pain that he must have been feeling -- because arm injuries hurt, right? That’s what Eddie told him, all those years ago, while crowded in the clubhouse. He wishes he listened better, now -- he kept walking Richie through it as if Richie was the one that’d been skewered.

He’d laugh, if the memory wasn’t so fresh and so fucking painful.

It was everything that he’d dreamed of since his teenage years - having Eddie pressed up so close to his chest that he could hear his soft heartbeat and feel his breath washing over his cheek, but instead it felt more like a situation that was pulled straight from a nightmare.

How cruel it would be, he thinks, that it might be the first and last time that he’d have the chance to hold Eddie so closely.

He studies a crack in the opposite wall of the waiting room, a little gap in between where the odd, geometric-turtle wallpaper is pulling against the drywall, trying to keep his mind off of _that_ shitshow. He studies and he stares until he’s looking at nothing but vague shapes and colors, the waiting room dissolving around him under the tense line of his shoulders.

“H-hey, Rich.”

The sound of Bill’s voice startles him out of his trance, and he looks apologetic when he whips around to look at him. Bill looks as exhausted as he feels, with his grey-streaked hair falling over his forehead and bags stretching beneath his eyes. He’s pulled his legs up to his chest, the heels of his shoes digging into the red vinyl of his chair.

“T-t-the others went back to the i-inn,” Bill murmurs quietly. Richie looks around him, realizing that he was right: their six-man entourage had reduced down to two without him so much as noticing. Most of the other patrons of the waiting room have left, really, leaving behind only Bill and Richie and a receptionist that looked like she was about to fall asleep on the job.

“Oh.” Richie’s voice sounds hollow to his own ears. He clears his throat. “Yeah. You can, like-- uh, go with them, dude. You fuckin’ reek.”

“We all r-r-reek,” Bill says, a small smile playing on the edge of his lips. “I’m used to it by now.”

Richie hums, a sound that he hopes sounds like an agreement. For the first time in his life, words begin to fail him, and he can’t even find it in him to make a proper joke. Silence spreads out between them like a dark cloud, heavy with emotion and moments from pouring. Richie taps his foot against the linoleum in a desperate attempt to divert his anxiety into something else.

“You know, you n-n-never left when I was looking for G-G-Georgie,” Bill says, quietly, leaning his shoulder against Richie. “Even after I p-p-punched you. You came back. And then you s-saved me from IT.”

He remembers that moment perfectly, now, down in the cistern twenty-seven years ago. How angry he felt when IT told them that they could go and leave Bill behind and all would be hunky-dory if they had. It was bullshit, and all eight of them knew it -- but it was Richie that moved first. Because it was Big Bill, the leader of the Losers, the boy that inspired them all to keep going even when the going got tough.

“You st-stayed. Even after E-Eddie got h-h-hurt, too.”

Richie pulls his eyes up from his shoes, looking through cracked lenses at Bill. Something about the words sink into him like lead, and he realizes all at once that Bill sees him; the true version of him. He feels cracked open and exposed, like an oyster’s shell pried open. His eyes flicker back to the receptionist in a panic, wondering if she could somehow see through his smokescreen, too. If a total stranger could take one look at him, covered in Eddie’s blood, and just know that Richie was in love with him - just like Pennywise always warned him. But the receptionist stays leaned back in her chair, completely oblivious to the conversation at hand.

And when he glances back at Bill, where he expects to see judgment he only sees softness and understanding.

Maybe it’s the panicked look on his face or the way that he doesn’t respond, but regardless Bill seems to get the memo. Bill squeezes his hand a little harder and turns his gaze away from him to stare at the brightly colored wallpaper. Richie’s pulse thumps in his ears.

“You helped me get him out of there, man. Consider us even for life,” Richie murmurs, quietly, like a secret admission for just the two of them. It was Bill, in the end, who convinced all the rest of the Losers that Richie was right, that there was no way they could leave him down there in the dark. When everyone else had given up hope, Bill stuck by his side and fought for him. Fought for _Eddie._

Even when Eddie was bleeding out all over Richie’s back, Bill didn’t leave his side. The others ran ahead to forge a path, to find a way out, but it was Bill that helped keep Eddie steady and Richie from stumbling.

It might have just saved Eddie’s life.

He doesn’t realize that the tears are falling until he notices them accumulating in the frame of his glasses like a well. Bill gently pulls at his arm for a few seconds until Richie lowers it, slowly, allowing him to lace their fingers together. His heart thuds against his ribs, and for a moment he feels a nausea rise up to his throat that isn’t at all about the clown.

“Losers s-s-stick together,” Bill agrees, squeezing Richie’s hand gently. “We don’t l-leave each other behind, no matter what.”

A whirlwind of emotions roar through him at his words. First is an overwhelming affection for the man he grew up with, and then with it is a flood of anger and despair. He wants to scream, _If we stick together, why did everyone else think we should leave him behind? Why would they have left him behind if it wasn’t for us, Bill? Why did it take you saying something for them to let me help him?_

But somewhere, even deeper down, he knows that it isn’t fair to blame them. He wonders, distantly, if he’d been the same way if it was anyone else; if it wasn’t Eddie on the line. Richie squeezes his eyes shut, trying to will that thought out of his mind before it can overwhelm him.

“Getting sentimental on me, Big Bill?” he says, hoping it doesn’t sound as choked as he feels.

Bill snorts. “S-something like that, Trashmouth.”

The silence that falls between them is a lot lighter than the one before. He watches as Bill pulls away a little bit to stare at the door, like a dog waiting patiently for its owner to return.

“It’ll be okay, Richie. Eddie’s the strongest guy we know,” Bill says, quietly.

Something about the sturdiness in his voice makes Richie want to believe him.

* * *

Bill dozes against his shoulder at some point, though through the bone-deep exhaustion that’s settling in, Richie doesn’t remember exactly when. The warm grip of his hand doesn’t let up. Even long after Bill has fallen into a deep sleep, he’s keeping hold of Richie like he’s worried that he's going to up and disappear.

Richie, unfortunately, knows that feeling all too well.

* * *

Nearly eight hours after they arrived at Derry Methodist with Eddie, the double-doors to the ER finally swing open again and a doctor steps into view.

“I assume all of you are here for Mr. Kaspbrak?”

Richie nearly knocks over the waiting room chairs in his haste to stand up, with Bill and the rest of the Losers not far behind. “Yeah-- yeah, that’s us.”

The doctor nods. “Alright. He’s out of surgery, now. We had to have part of his shoulder reconstructed from the beam that fell on him.”

He eyes them, skeptically, like something they found during the surgery didn’t quite match up with the story that they’d thrown together, but he goes on regardless.

“But Mr. Kaspbrak was very lucky. The object missed most of his major arteries and his lung, but he will most likely have permanent nerve damage in his shoulder and arm.”

“So he’s gonna be okay?” Richie asks, a little too fast.

“He’s not out of the woods, yet, but considering how well he did during the surgery I’m optimistic that he’ll make a full recovery. I’ve had him moved to the ICU so that we can monitor him a little more closely, but that’s only a temporary measure.”

“Can we see him?” Ben asks.

“He’ll be out for a while, and on some heavy painkillers for a little longer after that, so I’d like to keep him quiet for the time being.” The doctor glances between Bill and Richie, the only two that haven’t left the hospital since they first arrived. “I also won’t be allowing any visitors until you’ve entered a semi-sterile state.”

It’s the most clinical way that Richie has been ever told that he’s fucking disgusting and needs to take a shower, but Richie can’t even find it in himself to be mad. He allows Bev and Stan to take over the rest of the conversation, and phases in and out when he hears all about how lucky Eddie is. How the doctor has never seen anything quite like it. How _strong_ Eddie is to have gotten through it.

He feels dizzy beneath the weight of the news and returns to the waiting room chairs, his eyes swimming beneath his foggy glasses.

For the first time in his life, Richie Tozier believes in miracles.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/evvobevvo)


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